Saturday, 23 June 2012

[REVIEW] The Calling by Kelley Armstrong

Maya and her friends--all of whom have supernatural powers--have been kidnapped after fleeing from a forest fire they suspect was deliberately set, and after a terrifying helicopter crash they find themselves pursued by evildoers in the Vancouver Island wilderness. (From Goodreads)

It's come to my attention that perhaps the Darkness Rising trilogy and the one before it, the Darkest Powers trilogy, and the one after this is all one BIG conspiracy theory. Each book is similar and loosely connected to each other, which is similar to her adult urban fantasy series, the women of the otherworld, but I just feel that, being a reader who has ONLY read the Darkness Rising trilogy, I'm missing out on a lot of insider information that could help to explain some questions in this trilogy if I had read the trilogy before it. Well, I'll be honest, I hate Kelley Armstrong's teen fiction. It's not that it's bad writing because Kelley Armstrong is one of my favourite writers, just that I find this series, in comparison to her adult series, lacks the essence that made it so memorable for me. It's understandable that in teen literature, the author needs to dull it down or add more teenage drama to it to appeal to the demographic and it might be because of these added elements and the elimination of more mature parts that I find her young adult series somewhat lacking. I love action, and the hot romantic scenes between Clay and Elena and that isn't present in these books.

The Calling was an inbetween novel (hence why it's book 2 of a trilogy) and in all inbetween novel fashion, this book only served to explain what is happening to set the story up for the climatic end in the third one. Well I think this one was done splendidly. It really answered a lot of loose holes and shed some light on some characters. It starts off right where the last one left off at and by the end of this novel you'll be quite surprised at some of the revelations that occur. Actually revelations start in the first couple of chapters.

I know Kelley Armstrong is an author who hates describing things and that's also evident in this novel. She prefers quick action and there is that, in the brief page or two of action and than it's back to explaining. Kelley Armstrong also left the typical supernatural creatures, i.e. werewolves and vampires, and decided to explore more native legends and less known creatures which I think is very interesting and rarely done. Kudos Kelley Armstrong, Well done.

I think the star of this book was Sam. Well of course Maya is the main character so it's obvious that she would be one of the main focuses of the series but Sam was also very important in this book. I have a feeling that she was used as the person to bring information to them (which she did!) and; thus, had a larger role in this book. She also became more developed. No longer was she just the girl that moved to town after everyone and the mayor's niece but now as the girl with an extinct supernatural legend inside of her and having come from a troubled past. Some other characters are also devloped more, Corey, Nicole and Daniel.

There really isn't much to say about this book. There usually isn't much to say when the majority of the book is information. I can say thought that although the beginning of the book was action packed and very climactical, it took me awhile to get attached to this book. I think when more was explained, I could actually start to understand what was happening and appreciate the story more.

I won't say don't read this because I know many people love her Darkest Powers trilogy just that I don't think this is her best writing.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

Hi! My name's Gail and I love to read. You can usually find me reading a book while drinking tea at the same time. And most of the time that book may be a dystopia literature since I seem to have a knack for finding them... I'm a die-hard romantic and always expect the fairy tale ending, although a couple lover quarrels along the way is to be expected (and appreciated).